Each home and building has a circuit breaker box with a plurality of circuit breakers. The circuit breakers help protect electrical circuits from damage caused by short circuits or overload. For example, a circuit breaker functions to detect a faulty condition and immediately block electrical flow. Standard circuit breaker boxes have hot bus bars in the middle of the box with exposed male prongs that can be very dangerous. Also, the main breaker must be turned off (all power is lost to the home or building) in order to work on the box (e.g., change wires). The present invention features an improved circuit breaker box and corresponding circuit breakers that provide improved safety.
In the circuit breaker box of the present invention, the hot bus bars are positioned on one side of the housing, and they comprise female slots (e.g., female receiver terminals). The hot bus bars can be covered with a safety cover (safety shield) to make it shock-resistant to the worker. The female configuration (and safety shield) can help improve safety. Without wishing to limit the present invention to any theory or mechanism, it is believed that the circuit breaker box of the present invention is advantageous because it can allow a user to add or change wires without needing to turn off the main circuit breaker.